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| Which is my little boy
Posted: 1/9/2007 4:54:52 PM |
Ordered/on its way.
Oh, I hope you find it as wonderful as I do! And then you can learn “Si tous les bateaux” and you can call me up & we’ll sing it together! I’ll sing flat and you can do the harmony!
The heifer poem reminded me of a song I heard Odetta sing, almost too sad to consider, but:
Another Man Done Gone
Another man done gone (another man done gone)
Another man done gone another man done gone another man done gone
Another man done gone (another man done gone
Another man done gone another man done gone)
He had a long chain on (he had a long chain on
He had a long chain on he had a long chain on)
They hung him in a tree they hung him in a tree
They let his children see they let his children see
(When he was hangin' dead) when he was hangin' dead
The captain turn his head the captain turn his head
He's from the county farm (he's from the county farm
He's from the county farm he's from the county farm)
I didn't know his name (I didn't know his name
I didn't know his name I didn't know his name)
Another man done gone another man done gone another man done gone
Another man done gone (another man done gone
Another man done gone another man done gone)
Another man done gone another man done gone another man done gone
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| “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow.'”
Posted: 1/10/2007 10:02:42 PM | this was "given" to me by a friend
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To Live and Die In Dixie
I.
Our gang
Laid for the kids from town
We'd whoop from ambush chunking flints
And see pale soles
Of black feet scampering
Patched overalls and floursack pinafores
Pigtails with little bows
Flying on the breeze
More than birds
To chunk at
Birds
Were too hard to hit
II.
Old Maggie’s sweat would drip and sizzle
On that cast iron range she stoked
But she was grinding at the handle
Of our great big ice cream freezer
That day she had her stroke
It put a damper on my mother’s luncheon
All the ladies in their picture hats and organdies
Hushed up until the ambulance took Maggie off
But soon I heard
Their shrieks of laughter
Like the bird-house at the zoo
While they spooned in
Their fresh peach cream
III.
Asparagus fresh from the garden
My dad insisted
Went best of breakfast toast with melted butter
So Rob was on the job by six
He used to wake me whistling blues
And whistled them all day till plumb
Black dark when he got off
Times Mother was away
He’d play piano for me
Real barrelhouse
(I liked it better than our pianola classics)
and clog of the hardwood floor
Rob quit us once to paper houses on his own
But white men came at night and sloshed
Paint all over his fresh-papered walls
Took the spark plugs out of Model T truck
Poured sand in the cylinders
Then screwed the plugs back in
So when Rob cranked it up next day
He wrecked the motor
He came to work for us
But I can’t seem to remember
Him whistling much again
IV.
Black convicts in their stripes and shackles
Were grading our schoolyard
At big recess we watched them eat
Their greasy peas off tin
A tobacco-chewing white man over them
Shotgun at the ready
And pistol slung
In class we'd hear them singing at their work
"Go down Hanah"
"Jumpin Judy"
"Lead Me to the Rock"
I found a convict's filed off chain once in the woods
And took it home
And hid it
V.
Tired of waiting for Hallowe’en
Jack and I had one ahead of time
And went around soaping windows
And chunking clods of mud on people’s porches
Mr. Holcomb though came out shooting
His 45
At us scrouged up against a terrace
Across the street
He meant to kill us too
Because his fourth shot hit betwixt us
Not a foot to spare each way
So we didn’t wait for him to empty the magazine
But just aired out a mile a minute
Next day
Our mothers made us apologize
And Mr. Holcomb said he wouldn’t have shot at us
Except it was so dark
He took us for boys
VI.
Confederate veterans came to town
For their convention
And tottered in parade
While Dixie played and everybody gave the rebel yell
But the Confederate burying ground near school
Where the battle had been
Nobody seemed to care about
It was a wilderness of weeds and brambles
With headstones broken and turned over
The big boys had a den there
Where they would drag the colored girls
That passed by on the path
And make them do
What they said all colored girls
Liked doing
No matter how much
They fought back and screamed
VII.
The Fourth of July
Was a holiday for everybody but people’s cooks
Corinne was fixing us hot biscuit
When I marched into the kitchen
Waving the Stars and Stripes
And ordered to
“Salute this flag! It made your free!”
I just couldn’t understand why Corinne
Plumb wouldn’t
VIII.
Old Major Suggs
Ran for Public Safety Commissioner once
Orating against the black menace
From his flag-draped touring car
And got just 67 votes
From a town that had 132,685 people in 1910
Things were well in hand back then
And folks were hard to panic
One night a chicken thief got into
Old Major Suggs’ hen-house
And made off with some of his Barred Rocks
The Major was slick
And figured out the path the thief was sure to take
Back to town
So he took a short cut through the woods
And hid behind a tree
The thief came staggering beneath his sack of hens
And caught both barrels in his face
Point-blank
“That flopped and flopped”
old Major Suggs gloated long afterwards
“Just like a big black rooster that you’ve axed”
IX.
Spurgeon would daub designs on flowerpots
Wheelbarrows
Garbage cans
Just anything he could get his hands on
Though all he had was house-paint
And the kind of big flat brush
You slap it on with
My mother said
Spurgeon was what you call
A primitive
One Saturday evening
He was downtown window-shopping the pawnshops
Gawking at all the jewelry
The pretty knives and pistols
When a mob came tearing around the corner
After another black man
But they made Spurgeon do
John Beecher | |
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| “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow.'”
Posted: 1/13/2007 2:56:31 AM | Diamonds & Rust
Well I'll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that's not unusual
It's just that the moon is full
And you happened to call
And here I sit
Hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I'd known
A couple of light years ago
Heading straight for a fall
As I remember your eyes
Were bluer than robin's eggs
My poetry was lousy you said
Where are you calling from?
A booth in the midwest
Ten years ago
I bought you some cufflinks
You brought me something
We both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust
Well you burst on the scene
Already a legend
The unwashed phenomenon
The original vagabond
You strayed into my arms
And there you stayed
Temporarily lost at sea
The Madonna was yours for free
Yes the girl on the half-shell
Would keep you unharmed
Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you're smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there
Now you're telling me
You're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust
I've already paid
~~Joan Baez | |
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| “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow.'”
Posted: 1/22/2007 11:27:25 AM | This is what you shall do,
--Love the earth and sun and animals,
--despise riches,
--give alms to everyone that asks,
--stand up for the stupid and crazy,
--devote your income and labor to others,
--hate tyrants,
--argue not concerning God,
--have patience and indulgence towards the people,
--take off your hat to nothing known or unknown
or to any man or number of men,
--go freely with powerful uneducated persons and
with the young and with the mothers of families,
--read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life,
--re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book,
--dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
... and your very flesh shall be a great poem
~~ Walt Whitman. | |
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| “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow.'”
Posted: 1/22/2007 1:34:46 PM | Winter Birches
Even the ground needs rest.
Frozen eight feet down, it won’t
take the dead any more. The few
who will not wait till spring
are pulled on sleds across the snow
to the birch grove north of town.
There, they turn that white, that
ghostly. They’ll sometimes step
toward you in the moonlight,
arms outstretched or reaching up,
mouths stuffed with snow.
When that happens it’s best
to keep on walking. Pretend
you never knew them,
your own face cold.
It’s winter, after all. It’s night.
If you hear your name
don’t look back. Think of water
running under ice, a green bud opening.
Say they’re only birch trees,
they’re only trees. Don’t
think of what that means.
Lorna Crozier
Award winning Canadian poet | |
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| “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow.'”
Posted: 1/23/2007 3:17:27 AM | alyosha's post "another man done gone" made me think of this one (first published as a poem in 1937, then set to music by the author) - the anthem of the anti-lynching movement. billie holiday made the song famous. and the civil rights movement took off about 15 years later.
Strange Fruit
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
lewis allen (pseudonym of abel meeropol) | |
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| “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow.'”
Posted: 1/23/2007 10:14:44 AM | I depart as air.
I shake my white locks at the runaway sun.
I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt and grow
from the grass I love.
If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean.
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless.
And filtre and fiber your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged.
Missing me one place search another
I stop some where waiting for you.
~~ Walt Whitman | |
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| “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow.'”
Posted: 1/23/2007 1:02:15 PM | "Monkey Wash, Donkey Rinse"
(Warren Zevon and Duncan Aldrich)
Hell is only half full
Room for you and me
Looking for a new fool
Who's it gonna be?
It's the Dance of Shiva
It's the Debutantes ball
And everyone will be there
Who's anyone at all
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Going to a party in the center of the earth
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Honey, don't you want to go?
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Going to a party in the center of the earth
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Honey, don't you want to go?
Left eye, right eye
Take a look around
Everybody's heading
For a hole in the ground
And it's the Dance of Shiva
It's the Twilight of the Gods
Thunder and lightning
'Til the break of dawn
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Going to a party in the center of the earth
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Honey, don't you want to go?
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Going to a party in the center of the earth
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Honey, don't you want to go?
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Going to a party in the center of the earth
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Honey, don't you want to go? | |
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MrZen
| | Joined: 1/9/2007
Msg: 92 | |
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MrZen
| | Joined: 1/9/2007
Msg: 95 | |
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